뉴욕 컬럼

추석을 하루 앞둔 이 밤, 대통령이 고개를 숙인 사과가 온라인 커뮤니티와 방송, 당내 발언 속에서 다시 조롱과 의심의 재료가 되는 풍경을 보면 가슴이 먼저 먹먹해진다. 국민 앞에 “부족했다”라고 말한 사람을 향해, 같은 진영이라 불리던 이들이 칼을 거두지 않는 이 장면은 정쟁이 아니다. 이 땅의 역사가 여러 차례 반복해 온 병증이다. 왜 진보는 진보를 공격하는가. 무능 때문만은 아니다. 더 아픈 진실은, 한때 개혁을 자처하던 세력의 일부가 이미 자리를 지키고 체면을 지키며 영향력을 재생산하는 보수력으로 굳어버렸다는 데 있다. 진보의 가면을 쓴 기득권은 정권 교체 그 자체를 목표로 삼지 않는다. 그들은 정권이 바뀌어도 자신의 발언권과 도덕적 독점권이 흔들리지 않기를 원한다. 그래서 대통령이 낮아질수록, 사과할수록 더 세게 밀어붙인다. 낮아진 상대는 공격하기 쉽고, 사과는 약함의 증거로 재해석되기 때문이다.

This habit did not emerge yesterday. The Sarim of Joseon appeared by criticizing the Hungu faction, but after taking power, they turned on each other. The Muo Sahwa, Gapja Sahwa, Gimyo Sahwa, and Eulsa Sahwa all used the pretext of "righteous scholars" eliminating "corrupt scholars." The conflicts between the Dongin and Seoin, Namin and Bukin, and Noron and Soron initially seemed like disputes over scholarship and righteousness. However, as time passed, it became a survival game to determine who was purer and who was orthodox. When the Dongin attacked the Seoin in front of King Seonjo, when the Bukin cut down the Namin during King Gwanghaegun's reign, and when Hwangguk was repeated during King Sukjong's reign, the nation's military strength, finances, and the people's livelihood were all secondary to those struggles. Even before the Imjin War broke out, political factions sought out the faults of opposing parties rather than working together to prevent the signs of war. Even while the Japanese invaders were crossing the sea, the court debated who was right. Even before the Byeongja Horan, the justifications for advocating for war (cheokhwa) and peace (juhwa) often became pretexts for factional infighting. The results are as known. The internal sword first削 the nation, and foreign powers entered through that gap.

The same pattern was repeated on the brink of national ruin. It wasn't just a conflict between the enlightenment faction and the conservative faction. Even within the enlightenment faction, moderates and radicals called each other traitors, and when the Independence Association was dissolved, intellectuals suspected close comrades more than foreign powers. In the dying days of the Korean Empire, the language of Wi-jeong Cheok-sa (anti-foreign, pro-Confucian) and the language of enlightenment each became tools to prove the purity of their own camps. The habit of competing over 'who is more patriotic' rather than saving the nation ultimately exhausted the power to protect national sovereignty.

The liberation space was no exception. Independence activists who had together hated imperial Japan split within the provisional government. Syngman Rhee and Kim Gu, the left and the right, and the left within the left, branded each other as opportunists, compromisers, and spies. What began first in the liberated homeland was not unity to push out foreign powers, but an internal trial to determine who held the legitimate lineage of the nation. The winner of that trial did not necessarily become the winner for the people's livelihood. The sword of division did not come only from the outside. The split that first occurred on the inside embraced that sword.

Modern party history has also failed to cure this habit. After 4.19, the Democratic Party split into old and new factions and collapsed on its own, and the military regime used that division as an opportunity. The camaraderie between Kim Dae-jung and Kim Young-sam, who together fought against military dictatorship, also fractured when they reached the threshold of power. The three-party merger in 1990 is remembered as a realignment on the conservative side, but the democratic camp has also spent decades thereafter branding each other as traitors over 'who is the purer democrat.' The split of the Uri Party during the Roh Moo-hyun impeachment crisis seemed like an expansion of reform, but it was also the beginning of forces from the same root defining each other as outdated. The chasm between the pro-Moon and pro-Lee factions, extending from the late Moon Jae-in administration to the Lee Jae-myung era, is the latest version of that old habit. Analogies like 'reconstruction' rather than 'expansion,' and diagnoses like 'autoimmunity' attacking the core support base, sound like new language, but their content resembles the 'samunnanjeok' (disturber of Confucian order) branding of Joseon factional strife. The declaration that 'you are not on our side' merely borrows the name of reform.

The press conference on September 18th clearly revealed that point again. President Lee Jae-myung attributed the drop in approval ratings to “ultimately my own shortcomings,” stated that “the people are always right,” and drew a line by saying he had no intention of seeking re-election. He even asked for the special prosecutor to focus on uncovering the truth by removing the clause allowing for the withdrawal of charges. This could be a politically calculated rhetoric. However, at least in form, it was an act of kneeling before the people. Yet, on the same day, Gyeonggi Province Governor Choo Mi-ae said, “Trust is built only when actual reforms, not just words, are achieved.” The diagnosis that the weakening of prosecutorial reform led to a drop in approval ratings had already been repeated for several days. The demand to push harder for reform itself is the language of progressives. The problem is that this language, at the same time as the President’s apology, is being used like a shield to neutralize the apology itself. When public sentiment is shaken within the ruling power, the person who is first to draw a sword, but then deflects responsibility when facing livelihood and financial controversies in the local government they are in charge of, is seen by many supporters not as principled but as self-serving politics.

The actions of some lawmakers, including Jeong Cheong-rae and Kim Yong-min, are also along the same lines. Their strong statements regarding the speed of prosecutorial reform, police oversight, and personnel standards stimulate the clarity of their supporters. However, when this clarity fails to be the driving force for reform and instead becomes a check that disrupts the coordination between the party, government, and presidential office, it is no longer reform but an internal power struggle within the faction. The language of Yoo Si-min and Kim Eo-jun permeates longer and deeper. When sentences that sound like intellectual criticism belittle the President's apology and become fuel for ridicule in some communities, knowledge already becomes incitement. The habit of ridiculing power that apologizes is not compassion for the weak. It is the delusion that one stands above morality. This delusion was always present even when the Sarim (scholarly elite) attacked each other. It is the conviction that “I am public, and you are private.”

What good does this division do for reforming the country, revitalizing the economy, and maintaining our status as a developed nation? It does no good. Public sentiment regarding real estate remains sharp, personnel blunders continue to erupt, and the clocks of semiconductors, energy, exchange rates, and security tick on, regardless of internal factional struggles. What the public wants is not a trial to determine who is the purer progressive. It is about whether housing prices are easing, whether young people have jobs, whether power relinquishes its privileges, and whether the nation stands sovereign in the face of external pressures. Internal factional infighting obscures these questions. The more they are obscured, the easier it is for the remaining conservative establishment and some media outlets to frame it as 'they are just tearing each other apart.' This is akin to the factional struggles of Joseon, which ultimately benefited external relatives, powerful families, and later, foreign powers.

What is even more frustrating is the sense that old external forces are seeping into the cracks of this internal division. The remnants of pro-Japanese collaborators, the language of the vested-interest media, the Shincheonji and Unification Church networks already on trial for alleged political-religious collusion, and the surrounding money and organizations joining in to undermine the president – these circumstances are difficult to dismiss as mere rumors. In investigations into political-religious collusion, leaders of religious organizations have been indicted, and allegations of illegal political funds and mobilization of followers have been revealed. The problem is that even these investigations are consumed solely as 'whose side are you on?' While progressives tear each other apart, the vested interests and pseudo-powers, who should be the targets of reform, gain an advantage. It is a paradox where destroying the president becomes protecting the vested interests. It is like when, on the eve of national ruin, factions called each other traitors, while the forces truly eroding the nation were outside of that struggle.

The surest way for progressives in this land to betray themselves is to turn comrades into enemies under the guise of reform. The habit of scholars attacking scholars, the habit of the provisional government distrusting each other, the habit of opposition parties splitting opposition parties, the habit of pro-Roh, pro-Moon, and pro-Lee factions labeling each other as outdated is not ideology. It is the inertia of holding onto power. When we say progressives are becoming conservative, it does not mean their ideology has shifted to the right. It means the instinct of the vested interests, which has swallowed the language of reform, remains.

Nevertheless, the end of this article should be hope, not a curse. What our ancestors left behind was not a record of factional victories, but a desire for the nation to endure. The records of factional strife are extensive, and the number of nations that collapsed because of it was not just one or two. Despite this, the reason this nation rose again is that the desire to connect the nation barely remained, more so than the habit of attacking each other. Instead of ridiculing the President's apology, it is the citizens' duty to monitor whether that apology truly leads to real reform. Whether it's Choo Mi-ae, Jung Chung-rae, Yoo Si-min, or an internal party member, discerning whether their statements advance the people's livelihoods, sovereignty, and future, or are merely shouts to confirm their own positions, is the self-examination of progressives.

Now is not the time to tear each other apart. It is time to raise our bowed heads and watch whether those hands actually dismantle vested interests. The desire for history not to repeat itself, the hope that this nation will prosper, even with the care of our ancestors. As long as that desire remains, division will ultimately become insignificant before public sentiment.